Northstar Slide in campers

[KEnhoffer]

I would appreciate hearing from anyone who had had experience with this brand made by R. C. Willett Co. I am thinking of selling my 25' travel trailer as I do more camping than traveling and a slide in is big enough for the dog and me since my family would rather hotel it. I would like to keep my GVW legal. It looks like they make some lighter weight units - hardwall and popup that might be suitable.

 

[jsimpson]

Look at Northern Lite campers.

 

[PRout]

We had a northstar popup camper for about a year.



Its quality was so-so. Actually, the woodwork was very nice. The fiberglass siding was good, and the canvas material was good. Frame was solid.



The roof is not so strong, as I found out by just tapping a tree branch while backing up put a dent in the roof. Was not fixable, had to leave it w/ a small dent.



The heater kept us plenty warm in a 0 degree snowstorm, so it was actually insulated pretty well for a canvas top popup.



The rear wall mounted a/c unit was total junk! It worked only one time out and lost all its freon. I had to remove it myself, & take it in to factory service center, wait 6 weeks (w/ a hole in the back of my camper), got it back repaired & working. Took it off-road one time and when were were looking forward to using in sweltering Lake Mead heat. . It didnt work again! Really ticked me off. Took it back again , and same thing. I finally realized that this thing just cant take the vibration of offroad use. Was too bad, because I made a custom battery box for 2 extra batts & a big inverter to power the a/c. it was cool, (too bad the a/c wasnt) never really got to use the a/c.



Another problem was the fridge didnt work on 12v. The dealer told me that just because the fridge had the 12v position, didnt mean it really was an option. well, that was doo. It ended up being a broken wire in the wood frame that a staple cut. I had to fish new wire, because the service tech, couldnt figure it out. Oh well. After that the 3-way dometic fridge worked flawless, even made ice cubes in the hot summer!



During troubleshooting, I found that the moron that wired the thing really cut every corner possible. It really took away from the quality of the unit, and looked very chinsey! Had a big ball of Wirenutted connections in a place that was tough to egt to for repair work. 2 had already fallen off!! what were they thinking using wirenuts on a moving vibrating vehicle. Didnt even use any tape to hold em on. The electrical was junk.



The mechanism that pops up the roof was starting to have some problems, and the swivel points were starting to drop metal shavings (meaning that they were about to quit - and theyre expensive to replace from what Ive heard).



Another thing to consider about a popup is the canvas doesnt stop any noise from coming in when youre trying to sleep. Its very noisy inside if youre sleeping by a road, or in our case, in Circus-circus parking lot in Vegas. We found real quick that as soon as security sees you popped up, they know youre sleeping & kick you out! they dont want you sleeping in their lot, they want you to pay for an rv space, even though youre just trying to get some shut-eye for a couple hours.



It sure got alot of attention, and everyone thought the camper was cool, but they werent aware of the downsides.



Also ours only had a porta-potty, & no shower. Both points are pretty big negatives IMO.



We traded it in for the 5th wheel, and are VERY glad we did. Dont miss the camper much at all.



Sorry for the long post, but wanted to be helpful.



Ill try to post a pic. Good luck in your choice.

 

[PRout]

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[VicR]

Sunlite Eagle SB

We have had our Sunlite Eagle Short Bed model since September of 00, and we love it. We usually take a couple of week long road trips each year, and this camper works perfect for us. Things I like:



1. It doesn't bother the drivability of the truck at all. It doesn't stick out past the rear bumper, and its not that much higher than stock. We can even park in some parking garages with it on (the garage at Hoover dam being the most recent one). My wife does not feel intimidated at all driving the truck with the camper on. If it were not for the width, you wouldn't even know it was there. It claims to weight 1050 lbs. It costs about 2 MPG when its on.



2. In my neighborhood, CCR's require RV's be stored inside. I can drop it in the driveway and push it back into the garage on a homemade dolly. Even if you don't have this issue, they are easy to store.



3. Overall, I am pretty happy with our Sunlite. This is supposedly the truck camper arm of Winnebago. The only troubles I have had with it are the fill line to the water tank leaked until I put teflon tape on it, and one of the 2 CO detectors failed. Also, they went a little overboard with the silicone on the seams, so I had to clean some of that up. The crank-up mechanism seems pretty sturdy on ours. One of my favorites about the Sunlite is the storage under the cab-over bed. Some of the other brands didn't have that. We camped at Grand Canyon over Thanksgiving 00 and it was in the low teens. The furnace did just fine, and used a surprisingly small amount of propane.



For my wife and myself, its a great camper. We paid just over 6 for it brand new out the door in 00. Storage is at a premium, but the quad cab truck makes that a small issue. It all depends on the kind of camping you do. If you are only staying a night or two in one place, transportability might be a bigger issue than if you destination camp and want to drop the RV. Its a tradeoff. Ours has the dinette which converts into a bed, and we have slept once or twice on that on the road side to just get a few hours sleep without popping the top. We do most of our camping at state parks and the smaller national parks (ie Great Basin). At those places, a porta-potti is an advantage as many don't have RV dumps.



The top of the line pop-ups seem to be the Alaskan. They are hard-side pop-ups, but have a large size pricetag! Other manufacturers we looked at were Four Wheel campers, which were nice but a little more expensive and more geared towards the spartan crowd, and Palaminos, which didn't seem to be great quality from the few we looked at. Although not pop-ups, six-pac is making affordable, basic campers again as well.



Good luck on your search.



By the way - great pic's Shortshift!

 

[PRout]

Re: Sunlite Eagle SB

Originally posted by Vic R Ours has the dinette which converts into a bed, and we have slept once or twice on that on the road side to just get a few hours sleep without popping the top. [/B]

This is a great point Vic!



Ours had a dinette set that made into a bed also, but it was only about 4 ft long. Was too short for us, thats why we had to pop the top on the side of the road to sleep. If you could leave the top down & sleep on the lower bed, you wouldnt get all the road noise, attention, or whatever.



This is a BIG plus, that we had not considered before we got ours.



Yea, you sure can access alot more camping places w/ a popup that you wouldnt even think of w/ an rv.



Having 4wd made us too high for garage parking. I think it was about 8-1/2 ft high.



Its all in what you plan on doing. We originally planned on some weekend trips, and some one week longs, but quickly found we wanted a shower to stay comfortable, and popping down the top & reorganizing the back to make a quick trip to the store, or doing any exploring, kind of got old.



I got 14. 5 mpgs w/ the camper vs 18. 5 empty.



Its all what works for you.

 

[ralbert]

Northstar campers

Ken, Since you live in NJ drive out to Southold LI ny and go to East end campers and they handle Lance and North star. I have meet the owner Rex and he is a great guy. I have a Lance 945 but if I was looking for light weight I would get a North star. Good luck Rob